The present invention relates generally to seats and stands used by sportsmen while hunting in the outdoors, and more particularly to portable shooting and rifle stands capable of being quickly moved, adjusted, or pivoted to a variety of shooting positions.
The hunting of game using a rifle or other weapon can often require a great deal of patience on the part of the hunter, whether in an open field or in a wooded area. In particular, hunters often have to remain in a fixed location for an extended period of time in order to place themselves where game will enter or move into the shooting range of the hunter. For this reason, many hunters use crude or complex seats and shooting stands to allow them to comfortably maintain a seated position yet still respond quickly when the hunted prey enters the proximity.
When hunting some animals, prairie dogs being one example, it is also important that the hunter visually survey across a wide lateral field of view, looking for the sudden appearance of a target in the field. When the animal is spotted, the hunter then must rapidly change position to place his body and rifle into an adequate shooting position with respect to the visualized target. Unfortunately, prior art shootings seats and stands have not allowed this rapid change of horizontal or lateral position. Rather, prior art shooting stands would require the hunter to either contort his body into an awkward shooting position or to physically move the entire stand, causing both delays and unnecessary noise which might disturb the game.
Those prior art shooting stands which are to some extent adjustable, suffer from the further deficiency of lacking adequate ground engaging support. As a result, a sudden change in position may result in an off-centered tilting or unbalancing of the stand, causing a lack of stability during the shot.
What is needed, then, is a portable shooting stand which allows the hunter to remain in a seated position for an extended period of time, yet facilitate rapid and stable lateral or horizontal adjustment in shooting position when the target is spotted. Such a device is presently lacking in the prior art.